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Tesla Delivers First Batch of Model S Electric Sedans

Posted by timothy on from the have-you-considered-our-undercoat-treatment? dept.

After years of tantalizing pictures and promises, on Friday the first 10 Model S sedans left Tesla's Fremont, California factory. This first handful of the new S has long been spoken for, and the cars have been delivered (or are on the way) to buyers around the U.S. Even with tax-supported subsidies, the new sedan isn't cheap: the subsidized base price is just under $50,000. Still, 10,000 people have put down five grand apiece for the chance to own one. Wired has a brief piece on what the S is like to drive. What's a 160-miles-per-charge, $50k car worth to you?

21 of 311 comments (clear)

  1. To streamline future posts by Grayhand · · Score: 5, Interesting
    "What's a 160-miles-per-charge, $50k car worth to you?"

    Just to save some time and energy for posts to come. Yes it's over 20K so you aren't interested.

    Why can't they make one for under 20K? Batteries are too expensive.

    160 miles isn't enough? It wasn't made with you in mind.

    Gasoline suits me fine! Then be prepared for $5 and eventually $10 a gallon. Oil is running out and it will happen eventually. If you get solar panels to recharge from the cost of sunlight never goes up and the trend is for solar panels to get cheaper.

    1. Re:To streamline future posts by TooMuchToDo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Let me get these out of the way as well.

      I put $5K down 2 years ago. Yes, its expensive, but no more than a mid-level Audi or BMW (I love the S4 as well as the M5, respectively). I make over six figures, and have for the last several years, so I've already put a large downpayment aside and can easily afford the $400-500/month payment.

      I wanted a luxury car that was all electric and could hold my myself, my wife, and my on-the-way kids. It also needed to be usable by my wife for errands, driving the kids around, etc.

      I would buy this car even if gas was $2/gal. Someone has to eat the R&D costs for the price to drop for everyone else.

    2. Re:To streamline future posts by WindBourne · · Score: 5, Informative

      You missed so many points.
      Tesla is starting high-end and going towards low. In 2014, they are expected to introduce their sub 30K electric car. Unlike the garbage that is out there, it will likely be a 4 seater, and have decent performance and torque (i.e. 0-60 under 6 if not 5) and a range of around 120 miles.

      If 160 miles is not far enough, then for 10K each bump, you can change to 220 or even 300. With the 300 mile range, you also get the improved motor that will drop your 0-60 in the 4's. However, if you can not afford, then you are right. Stay with a gas car or wait another year for a Natural Gas car. For now.

      Sigh. Most ppl drive in the day times. So, installing panel do little for you, unless you have one that works based on night time charging. Regardless, electricity is less than $1.00 per gallon of gas equivalence (for most of USA, it is .80-.90).

      Very little maintenance costs.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    3. Re:To streamline future posts by ArcherB · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Within my lifetime, gas has gone from .23/gal to 4.00/gal. If we are going to repair roads, etc. I suspect that we will need to double taxes. That will mean that we will within a couple of years pay around 6/gal, and I would not be surprised to see us approaching Europe levels of oil prices.

      First, the roads were built with the current gas taxes. Why would we need to double them to maintain the roads?

      OK, let's assume gas is $6.00/gallon.

      $30000/6=5000 gallons of gas.

      At 20 miles per gallon, that's 100,000 miles, or the typical life of an American made car.

      How many miles do these batteries last, anyway?

      Doesn't matter, if you are buying one of these to save money, you are making a mistake. If you are buying on of these to save the environment, you'd be better off buying a Honda Civic and spending the $30,000 planting trees or something.

      --
      There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
    4. Re:To streamline future posts by Immerman · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Or we could, you know, move toward public transportation in big way - it absolutely excels in high-density urban areas. Want a fast conversion without a lot of expensive infrastructure? Simply set aside one lane on every multi-lane street as a dedicated bus lane and then make sure the drivers stay on schedule (via carrot and/or stick). The resultant increase in both bus speed and automotive congestion would instantly make buses considerably faster, cheaper, and more convenient than cars, strongly incentivizing their use. They technique has proven quite popular pretty much everywhere it's been done, after the initial adjustment period has past.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    5. Re:To streamline future posts by WindBourne · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Add in maintenance costs on ICE engines. Add in oil changes. And in the fact that society subsidizes the pollution from these (and will likely be changed by 2020) and it becomes obvious that batteries are at about break-even.

      Now, a tesla model S has higher performance than most cars in the same costs brackets. And have you seen the vehicle. Beautiful. Basically comparable or better quality than German or Japanese cars.

      By 2015, the model S is expected to drop to around 45K without subsidies. Likewise, they will have their sub-30K car out there. I was told that it would get around 120-150 miles/charge and have 0-60 of around 6 secs or less.

      Point is, I will take that. This is no different than what happened with Ships, Trains, ICE Cars, Aviation, and now space.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    6. Re:To streamline future posts by Teancum · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I have mixed feelings about mass public transportation. My largest complaint is that it is a whole bunch of hurry up and wait, where personal vehicle which do point to point travel is legitimately seen as desirable, where you don't need to worry about making connections or fighting transportation system schedules just to make appointments.

      I've seen some public transportation systems that act very much like a Taxi service providing point to point travel at prices approaching bus transit or cheaper, so it is possible. The largest problem with such a system is that it requires a significant build-out of infrastructure before it becomes something useful.

      Regardless, while some people like living in ant farms like Manhattan (how it is sort of viewed from outside), there are many who don't as well. It is one thing to say it should become more economical for people to move into a situation of high density urban living, but from a standpoint of basic liberties it shouldn't be something forced on people either. I'm also not convinced that the economics of moving most of the world's population into such high density urban lifestyles is even possible to make work without a larger infrastructure in place elsewhere that also needs a fairly large population of people in medium or low density housing.

    7. Re:To streamline future posts by Luckyo · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'd like to pitch in on this one. I live in Finland, city of Tamepere. we have ~200k living in the city. This is the site of our public transportation: http://aikataulut.tampere.fi/?lang=en (fully functional english version, we have a lot of exchange students and foreign workers due to being an industrial town). There is also a mobile version of the site and most stops have a printed upcode barcode that you can scan with your phone into an app to help with seeing timetables on the fly.

      Full site has the following:
      1. Per bus line and per stop timetable (which tends to be accurate within ~2 minutes).
      2. Journey planner, where you simply input your start point and end point and set your desired departure or arrival time, and software will provide you with several routes that fit your criteria. You can also set details, like to ignore certain bus lines when doing route calculation or how much margin of error you want to switching lanes.
      3. Traffic monitor of GPS-fitted busses (actually most if not all busses have trackers, but it seems only a few are enabled to broadcast to public at any given time).

      Public transit itself here is excellent. The only times I ever need to use a car is when I leave the city or am in a big hurry. This in spite of the city being so big that it was classified as a "village" by early EU rules due to having extremely low population density, often considered a bane of public transportation. Night traffic also exists, timed with shift changes in bigger working places (for example shift changes for central hospitals or major factories).

      Every bus has been equipped with GPS for a while now. Bus essentially has a notification board inside set to be visible from everywhere in the bus that displays the next stop's name and projected time of arrival as well as current time. Busses are modern Volvo and Scania models, fully air conditioned and equipped with heaters so they're comfortable through hot summers and cold winters. There are many other little allowances for comfort of people, like NFC tickets (you just wave your card through a NFC reader and it shows you the balance on the ticket in front of the driver where you enter, while people exiting the bus do so through middle and rear doors).

      Pricing is reasonable by local standard: you can enter any bus for an hour after purchasing the ticket which costs 2.50EUR. By using preloaded tickets, you shave almost a euro off the price. You can also get a monthly card for something around 50EUR, and there are significant discounts for students children and elderly. They also have "workplace" tickets specially tailored for workplaces to buy for their workers.

      We have bus lanes throughout city centre, which means that you will avoid most of the congestion especially during rush hour by taking a bus.

      In general, if you want to make it work, it can be made to work and work well to the point where even a low density 200k city can have public transit good enough to allow to not even have a car if you don't want to own one. It's one of the major infrastructural advantages here, of you move with your spouse, one car for the family is more then enough, and a single person can go without a car alltogether in many cases. There have actually been calculations done that it's cheaper for an average single student/worker to have a bus card and grab a (very expensive high quality service legally mandated local monopoly) taxi for those few times that bus tables do not suit him/her.

    8. Re:To streamline future posts by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm jealous. I really am.

      We have public transport in my city too. There's a website which allows you to plan your trip. It comes up with such useful things as "Get on train at 5:30, get to Central Station at 6:00" OR option B: "Get on train at 5:00, go two stops forward, get off train, wait for next train, get to Central Station at 6:00"

      Not that this matters. The published timetables are complete works of fiction anyway, for trains as well as buses. Buses also have another feature where they frequently fill up and start skipping stops unless someone was willing to get off which makes it impossible to catch a bus into the city during peak hour if you live close to the city.

      Then there was the classic pricing problems. $4.50 one person one way for a train ticket. My mate and I don't even bother. I don't have a NFC card. It's too expensive. On a weekend some of the parking garages in the city charge a flat rate of $15. It's cheaper, faster and more certain to simply drive if more that one person is going.

      The stupid thing is this is the best the public transport has ever been. 10 years ago we used to joke about not needed to go to theme parks as a bus ride would outdo the thrill and fear of even the highest roller-coaster. I tried to cycle everywhere, except my city isn't built for it and the road rage here is incredible.

      At least the car I bought has a tiny 1.4L engine so it's cheap to run.

  2. Re:If you`re buying one of these . . . by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    $50,000 is chump change given the market they're targeting; it's well in line with the purchase costs of similarly-outfitted gassers and it costs a hell of a lot less than the German models. If their build quality is somewhere in between typical American shit (Even the Ford GT famously has flimsy interior, and it's the most expensive American production car ever AFAICT) and a decent kraut kan then the price is eminently reasonable.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. Re:Why can't they extend the range? by Eightbitgnosis · · Score: 4, Informative

    The cars with the larger battery options can go 300(reviews say 265) miles on a charge, and can be charged at up to 62 miles per hour of charge. That's pretty decent

  4. Re:miles per charge? by Eightbitgnosis · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is a battery upgrade option. Wired is talking about the larger battery

  5. Re:If you`re buying one of these . . . by WindBourne · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Same price as a BWM, Mercedes, Nice SUV, etc. The only difference is that the Tesla costs a fraction of the price to own and can outperform most of those cars.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  6. Re:If you`re buying one of these . . . by DJRumpy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Note this is for the base model. The top end gets closer to a conventional combustion vehicle for not much more than a higher end sedan, and the car performs like a high end sorts sedan. This price is actually one of the better ones out there considering its capabilities, and it's capable of traveleling farther than most electrics on the market at the high end (300 miles per charge).

    0 to 60 times in 5.7 seconds.

    Not bad at all...

  7. re:tesla delivers first batch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Even with tax supported subsidies, gas isn't cheap.

    Gas shill Luddites would have us using a hundred year old technology instead of solving the technological problems that new technology always presents, all the while denying that there can be any negative consequences from any technology filling the coffers of right wing bloviating ignoramuses.

    What's it worth to you to keep gas filled blow-hards redistributing money into the hands of cronies preparing the ground with lies and deceit for the next phony yellow cake war of liberation.

    Donate your money to Al-Quaeda why don't you; Exxon Mobil, Shell, etc do with their royalty - and I do mean royalty - payments to Wahabi Arabia.

    Or not.

    If you can't afford the current tesla, wait a little longer; toyota will be using tesla battery technology to introduce an electric suv based on the toyota Rav model.

    http://pressroom.toyota.com/releases/toyota+tesla+build+rav4+ev+woodstock+ontario.htm

    tesla has comitted to introducing a 30k+ model X suv by 2015.

    http://www.teslamotors.com/modelx

    This comment has not been approved by the Ameican Enterprise Institute or the Heritage Foundation, their employees or contractors.

  8. Re:Cost per charge by WalksOnDirt · · Score: 4, Informative

    Right now with gas prices dropping to below $3 a gallon in my area, a Prius operating at 50 MPG costs 6 cents a mile in fuel. How does the Tesla compare?

    I make it as about four cents, assuming you pay the national average for power. But, a Prius is not the proper comparison. A BMW 5 series is about right. Really, the question is whether the quiet ride and performance is worth the lack of range - fuel costs don't matter to these people.

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    a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
  9. Re:Environmental Impact? by Dan+East · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The idea is to make the consumer portion "green" and non-emissive, because then over time the underlying power generation can be made less polluting or swapped out for entirely new methods of generating power without requiring any "upgrades" or action by the consumer. It is definitely easier to regulate, and probably less expensive and more efficient to implement, emissions control at a handful of large power stations than millions of individual car engines.

    --
    Better known as 318230.
  10. Willingness to pay may be higher ... by perpenso · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I suppose a $50,000 ANYTHING would be worth about $50,000 to me.

    Actually its more complicated than that. The car may be worth significantly more or less than the amount paid to an individual person. The car itself may only be worth $40,000 to a person but something else, say greening their image, may be worth $10,000+. One the other hand the car may be worth significantly more than $50,000 to an extremely environmentally conscious person, so this person essentially thinks its a deal. Yet another person may also think it is worth significantly more because they added up the price of the components and found a higher number, appreciate the taxpayer subsidy, and want to purchase now before that subsidy goes away - say due to a change of political administration.

    In short, prices do not always match a person's willingness to pay, a more technical phrase for what its worth to person. A price generally needs to be at or below that willingness to pay. Apple sold a bunch of iPhones at $600 when it was introduced. Those people who thought an iPhone was worth $600 paid less than that when newer more capable models were introduced at $500 and then $400.

    Give it a year and I'm sure that will change drastically.

    Again, that depends. Back to that government subsidy. If the subsidy is removed and the price for a new car goes up then the used car may retain its value to some degree.

  11. Re:If you`re buying one of these . . . by WindBourne · · Score: 4, Informative

    Then you should read the reviews, esp. the second link on the original posting.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  12. Re:If you`re buying one of these . . . by lgw · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I drive cross-country about once every 5 years. Renting a car when I do that can make sense even if I don't own an electric car.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  13. Re:If you`re buying one of these . . . by loshwomp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At greater than $0.45/kwh, the price to buy it isn't your biggest worry.

    Please don't spew false information. PG&E nighttime rates for EV charging are about $0.05/kWh, which is about like buying gasoline for $0.50/gal.

    Even at the made-up price you pulled out of your bunghole, it's still comparable to the per-mile fuel cost of a gasoline car, never mind the practically-zero maintenance cost of the electric.